After weathering a winter of intimida tion, Mayor Bloomberg has appar ently capitulated to an Environmental Protection Agency scare campaign.

The issue: PCBs — three little letters that are about to sock New York schools with another $700 million funding drain.

The supposedly toxic chemicals are found in old light fixtures in classrooms all over. The feds want them replaced — no matter the cost.

Thus the EPA spent months conducting weekend spot checks for PCBs, spooking parents over a substance banned in 1978 but present in every man, woman and child — mostly from eating river fish.

No surprise, those bloodhound G-men found what they were looking for — and Mayor Mike then agreed to spend $708 million over the next decade to replace light fixtures in 772 schools.

What a monumental waste of time and money — money schools don’t have.

And all to fix a problem that doesn’t re ally exist.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there’s limited data on what exactly airborne PCBs do to human beings.

So what’s the EPA’s rationale for requiring such draconian action?

Some clinical studies of rats that were force-fed PCBs and some hairless mice

that were doused with them in extreme doses.

Pity the poor critters.

But as for humans breathing it in?

Studies — even some involving industrial workers who were exposed daily to PCB levels up to 30,000 times the norm — are inconclusive.

Want perspective?

Last month, the mayor cited New York’s long-serving former health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, as noting, “One tuna-fish sandwich puts more PCBs in your body than breathing air in a normal school for an entire career as a student.”

That’s the same Tom Frieden who’s now director of the Centers for Disease Control and the administrator of its toxic-substance agency. The same Tom Frieden whose record of public-health alarmism makes his newfound nonchalance especially reassuring.

Nonetheless, the EPA thinks it’s entitled to its own facts — and the right to siphon $708 million (if not more, when all’s said and done) from the classroom.

If that forces teacher layoffs at some point, it’s on the EPA’s head.

Imagine: Thousands of classes with brand-new, PCB-free lights — and no teachers to flip the switch.